Wan of a Kind V2.0

Sharing a meal with my family in Kyoto  Last year was especially significant for me. I became a septuagenarian! In my honour, a couple of good friends, Soo Inn and Bernice, reprinted 47 of my published articles in a book aptly titled Born in ’47 . Born in '47 - A Life In Writing The WAN tribe of 10 descended from the USA and Canada to celebrate. For the first time in years, we had our family vacation in Kyoto. And for the first time in years, Ruth and I took a cruise around the Mediterranean and the Baltic, spent some time in Northern England and Scotland and Spain. Over the years I have been to many of these places because of work, but I have not been good at taking vacations. However, this time around, I felt it was time to vacate my usual work routine and do something different. It was a “working vacation” – interviewing folks on the cruise about living well and leaving well – a book project I am working on. Last year has also been literarily productive. ...

A few days ago, a Friend of 50 years shared with me a story over dinner.  Her lady friend was comfortably seated on an MRT train when a pregnant lady boarded the train.  She stood up to give her seat to her but before she could take it, a young man rushed across her and took the seat. The young man settled down and started to wear his earphones and began watching a show on his iPad, completely ignoring the pregnant lady in front of him. It was obvious to him, and everyone else around that just-vacated seat that it was meant for the pregnant lady as the one who gave it up was still on the train, now standing next to the pregnant lady. Unfortunately, no one spoke up for either the lady who gave up the seat or the pregnant woman who was meant to be the beneficiary of that kind act.  It was a classic case of the bystander effect. The kind lady who gave up the seat then spoke up.  "Hello," she said ever so gently, "I gave up the seat for this lady, not for you," p...

I introduced Lars Peter in my Facebook post from Copenhagen a few days ago. He is a 56-year-old gentleman from Greenland whom we met at his "home" which is the doorstep of a church in the heart of Copenhagen, a stone's throw away from the palace. He was sitting on the steps of the church doorway with his broken tricycle parked at the side. Seeing us approaching, he gestured and said, "The church is closed. It is only opened on Sunday morning for service. It's my home the rest of the time." His English was perfect. I introduced myself and Ruth. He said, "How do you do? My name is Lars and I am a veteran from Greenland." I sat down beside him. There is a wisp of alcohol as he spoke. He offered me a cigarette to which I politely declined. He told me his story. An Eskimo from Greenland, he became a soldier in Denmark. Then he became a mercenary and was stationed in the Faroe Islands, Iceland, UK and Germany. "I fought fierce ...

I am seventy and I feel that life has just begun. This feeling is shared by many septuagenarians. May Sarton has written At Seventy: A Journal and Judith Viorst, I’m, too Young to be Seventy . Both are funny, warm and positive. Judith is certainly “glad to be alive” and does not see it as the autumn of life. “The autumn of life,” writes Sarton, “is … a matter of saying farewell, but the strange thing is that I do not feel it is autumn. Life is so rich and full these days. There is so much to look forward to, so much here and now…And right now there are hundreds of good letters to answer and hundreds of bulbs to plant. I do not feel I am saying farewell yet but only beginning again, as it used to be when school started.” I love these positive life-affirming women, full of vigour and humour. They are good representatives of the spirit of active ageing, of which I am an ambassador. So, why do I feel that it’s spring at seventy? For me, it is about being in good health. I...

Dear friends, Hello, it’s me. Pun on Adele’s song aside, it’s been almost four years since the launch of this blog in August 2012. Thank you for giving me the privilege and pleasure sharing with you my thoughts and ideas on kindness, and I hope I have gotten more people alerted and interested in some aspects of kindness.  It is with a tinge of sadness that I am now announcing the closure of this blog. This is part and parcel of revamping our site. We are renaming our new editorial site, The Pride . It is a content-driven site that will bring fresh insights on current affairs and community happenings that has some relevance to our mission to foster a kinder and more gracious society. We want this new platform to be more engaging and interactive. I will contribute op-eds and social commentaries on issues relevant to kindness, as a member of the editorial team. It is time to change from being the sole writer of my own blog on kindness, to being a staple contrib...

I have just received some copies of the latest Infocus , a Ministry of Manpower publication for employers of foreign domestic workers. The cover story Kindness is the Movement is an interview I gave to its writer. What are some ways in which employers can help FDW adapt to living and working in Singapore, I was asked. Though we had never engaged a FDW, I had spent periods of time with families with FDWs and I shared some of my observations of the way FDWs are treated that facilitated their happy adaptation. They include, The children addressing them as aunties – there is respect shown to them They are given good accommodation, meaning, their rooms are adequately furnished They have television set and watch local news and other programmes during their rest times They are encouraged to read local newspapers They are given a day off and encouraged to explore Singapore They eat out at the same table with their employers like a family member. I bel...

“And real talk, like, seeing these ants and studying them and respecting them, it’s like, man, they’re in their own community too. They’re trying to survive. They love. They fight. They’re telling themselves something. We can’t understand, but one day we will.” Brandon McCartney  “Go to the ants, you sluggard, learn how to be wise.” A Proverb. A well-known proverb commends the ants for their prudence, cooperation and industry. These social characteristics of ants are often used in fables and children’s stories as in Aesop’s The Ant and the Grasshopper. No less than Mark Twain wrote about them in his A Tramp Abroad.  The social nature of ants has also led other famous literati to use them as a commentary on the relationship between society and the individual. Among this genre are American poet Robert Frost’s Departmental and novelist T H White’s The Once and Future King. More recently, computer-animated cartoons and 3D movies feature these fascinating insects in ver...